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better acquainted with North American plants, and in another 

 way. Baron Bjelke, the vice-president of the Court of Appeals 

 of Finland, had proposed to the Royal Academy of Sciences at 

 Stockholm to send an able man to Iceland and Siberia, countries 

 partly in the same latitude as Sweden, " to make observations 

 and such collections of seeds and plants as would improve the 

 Swedish husbandry, gardening, manufactures, arts and sci- 

 ences." Dr. Linnaeus suggested North America instead, and 

 recommended one of his pupils, Professor Pehr Kalm, of Abo, 

 for the proposed expedition. Kalm spent two years in North 

 America, traveling through Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York 

 and Canada, and making large collections of seeds and plants, 



material. During his stay at Raccoon, New Jersey, he discov- 

 ered our mountain laurel. The Swedes of Raccoon called it 



wood. Kalm adds in his journal about this tree : " The English 

 call this tree a Laurel, because its leaves resemble those of the 

 Laurocerasus. Linnaeus, conformably to the peculiar friendship 

 and goodness which he has honored me with, has pleased to call 

 this tree Kalmia foliis ovalis, corymbis lerminalibtis, or Kalmia 

 latifolia." Here Linnaeus himself gave an illustration of both 

 the pre-Linnaean and the post-Linnaean nomenclature. Kalm 

 became acquainted with several of the naturalists of this country, 

 C. Colden and his daughter Jane, Bartram and Clayton, and 

 through Kalm a correspondence was established between them 

 and Linnaeus. Linnaeus also corresponded with John Ellis, who 

 resided in the West Indies, and Dr. Gardiner, who botanized in 

 Carolina and Florida. Later he bought a set of plants collected 

 by Patrick Browne in Jamaica, and received a part of the collec- 

 tions made by Jacquin in the West Indies. 



When the second edition of the " Species Plantarum " appeared, 

 in 1762, Linnaeus knew and had described nearly 1,000 plants 

 indigenous to the United States and Canada. Besides these, he 

 described about 1,000 more, natives of the West Indies, Mexico 

 and Central America, and 400 or 500 South American plants. 

 His knowledge of American plants was small compared with 



